6 Fatal mistakes website owners do on their website and how to avoid them

Yes, it is true, often when i talk to fellow collegue marketers online and offline, they commenly make the same mistakes and often, as a result they don't get the expected outcome in sales, leads, or website traffic in general.

On this hub, i will highlight the 6 most common fatal mistakes website owners make, and i will include some tips on how to avoid them.

Mistake#1: Being obsessed with getting more traffic(visitors).

One of the biggest mistakes you can make, and this one could cost you the most. A great part of the website owners are only focused, or should i say obsessed with driving traffic to their websites, and mainly new traffic, or new visitors. They often think to fast that getting more visitors, equally means more sales and thus so, more profits. In many cases, the result is exactly the opposite, attracting visitors can be very expensive, certainly with ppc advertising.

People looking for a product, type it in in one of the search engines, but mainly don't look further than the 3th page, so you can alter your website to get higher in the rankings, pay more with ppc, or build a bunch of backlinks.

But who are your best leads? Which people are the most highly expected people to buy from you? New frech leads, or people you know? Exactly, people who know you, who already bought from you in the past! so the tip, try driving new people in, but build an even further relationhip with the people who trust you and already bought from you, your chances of making a sale will increase dramaticly.

How to do this????

Simple, set up an autoresponder, put in a mail list of about 50 to 90 mails, and let it automaticly send mails to your clients and new prospects. If needed you can set up to mails, 1 for your existing clients and one for new fresh leads. Now in the mailing system for the new fresh leads, don't try to sell straight a way, let them get to know you 1st, set up about 30 mails, before you put in a product to sell, this will also increase your salesratio. give them some free stuff, advise, free e-books you found somewhere, just give, in order to receive!

Mistake#2: Having a boring or ugly website

let's look it like this, 90% of the websites are boring. Research has showed, that a visitor spends on average 8 seconds on a website, so that's it, you only have about 8 secs, to keep a visitor. Take a look at your website, and see what you can do to make it more appealing, see if there is anything interesting that captures the visitor and motivates him to stay on your site.

Be honest to yourself, are there any things that can be adjusted, try to play a bit with your site, make it more appealling, and take a test, on your conversion rate. Slightly increased? good job, that way, you can make your sitea money machine, so you'll get much more sales. Try to test and tweek your work, do some SEO, while making your site better, look for the layout, style, fonts, colors, banners used, the quality of your articles, the placing of your articles, is it easy to get the info the visitor needs, look into that, and your results will better.

Mistake#3: Thinking the visitor will buy on the 1st visit:

many website owner tend to beleive that when the site looks good, when it has great articles, footage, products, and what not, the visitor will buy directly, this is a great mistake, you need to know that statisticly a visitor needs about 8 visits to a website before he/she will take out the credit card and make that purchase. So, you may have found a way, to captivate your audience, but still you need to do effort to bring back this person to your website.

Again, like in the 1st point, the key here is trust, how much do they know or trust you, now offcourse, if you are a big player in your market or region, chances are great they already know you and trust you, and so will make a purchase much faster, but if you are a small player, then ask yourself, why would these people buy from me, instead of .....a big name.

Say for instance, you have made a self improvement book, and you try to sell it online, why would they buy it from you, instead of Bob proctor?(the man from "the secret") Or what if you have a online bookstore, search for a reason, why they need to buy from you instead of Amazon.com! make sure your website has the answer to it, if not, thuff luck buddy, your sale is going to the concurrence.

Now that's for the bad part, now the good one, if you do manage to build trust and you've captivated your audience, you can make many many sales many times over again. Again to build trust, build a relationship, if your only target is to sell, sell, sell, well let me just say, you lost your leads, and will soon see you as some kind of decease. Now if you have buid up a relationship, they will see you as an advisor, as a person, they can depend on, a person they know of he's honest, legit and give them value!.

Start buiding that relationship on your website, invite them to your blog, let them subscribe to your newsletter, answer their questions, look for their needs and provide them, add an rss feed to your site, you name it, it can all work out well for you.

MIstake#4: Making the website to difficult to buy.

Most shoppers, want an easy way to purchase their goods, therefor, provide an easy way for the clients to pay, add a shoppincart system, instead of paypal, not all people online have a paypal account, and you cannot force them to sign up for an account there, although it can give you an extra affiliate comission. So add a shoppingcart system, you can go to 1shoppincard.com or others, add this to your site, it's an easy system, the client has a controll over the purchase, and it's easy for you, cause the system, takes over all the work for you.

mistake #5: Not keeping your website up to date:

Studies have shown that most people hate the fact that a whole lot of the websites online, don't update their site often, again, if you want to keep your prospects from coming back, you'll need to provide value, they are looking for something new, when you have a bunch of regular clients, who you have build up a relationship with, think about it, what would happen, when they look at your website, but nothing new get's published? Correct, they'll look somewhere else.

Your websites credibility will decrease, when new fresh content isn't put on, on a regular base, also, make sure their aren't any typo's or working issues, make sure all your tabs are working, that all buttons redirect to the correct page, etc... It is ever important that you have some knowledge to change or update your website, that way, you show that you are serious about your business, and again, you will build more trust.

Running a website is like having a car, the're both great, but they need attention, a car need to be washed, needs to have fuel, and the motor needs to work, . Think about it, what if you had a ferrari standing on the driveway, but doesn't have an engine, i am sure it looks good to show of with, but at the same time it's rediculous. The same rule applies at having a website.

Mistake#6:Not leveraging your value:

Say you have some kind of knowledge, some kind off skill, you are pretty good at, why wouldn't you try to monetize it? look at what extra value you can offer to your clients, ok, it depends a bit on the business you're in, but say, you sell self improvement books, why don't you read all these books, and become an expert in it, or say you are an expert, instead of wasting a lot of time by going to your clients for some 1 on 1 sessions, why not do it on your website, why not adding video's or articles you've written? Why not make a seperate part on your site for members only, that's right, add a membership site, to your regular one, you can create an extra income streaam from 1 website. Let people pay a small monthly fee, to get in your head, to get the info you know.

That's what i like to call, leveraging your value. You are not only selling stuff, you're not just a mear salesman, you can add value to peoples lives, and what the heck, you make some extra money with it, while again, building trust, building a relationship, getting more and more visitors, sales and fame, yes fame, people who are your customers will use word of mouth and you will get more results. Just think about it.

Say you have an online store for car engine parts, you have the knowledge about cars and engines, why wouldn't you let people pay, in the form of a membership site how to take appart an engine, how to fix an engine, how to clean an intercooler and stuff like that, make a video about it, wright articles, create an ebook on your subject and sell or give it away on your site. beleive me your sales will increase. As a mather of fact, just do the math, say you sell your knowledge for $30 a month, times e.g:100 members, you make an extra $3000 a month+ your sales.

Want to make even more from your knowledge, wanna make an even higher leverage???

easy, when and if you are able to leverage your knowledge and you are able to attract 100 people to your membership site, offer an affiliate program, put your site up to clickbank and other affiliate networks, not only will you attract more traffic by placeing those sites, you'll also atract affiliates, who will promote your site for you, that is if you have a decent commission rate. in the previous example we had 100 members x $30=$3000  right, ok, now with affiliates you have e.g 1000 members. So 1000 x $30=$30.000, but let us not forget the affiliate commissions, so, $30.000-(e.g. 50% commission)=$15000 a month!!!!!

Now that's what i call leveraging. wouldn't that change your life?

These where a few tips, in order for you to get a better outcome.

I know some of them are pretty logical, yet it are commenly made mistakes.

Good luck and happy earnings

steffer